Xbox 360 Not Getting Final Fantasy XIV Anytime Soon

Some fans of Square-Enix’s current MMO, Final Fantasy XI, who play on the Xbox 360, might have hoped that their newest outing into the genre would land squarely across all platforms that the current one does, those being Windows PC, Sony’s PS2 and Microsoft’s Xbox 360. No matter how much Square attempts to haggle with Microsoft, it appears it isn’t to be this time around – at least not until Microsoft changes their rules.

In a recent interview with Players4.de, FFXIV producer Hiromichi Tanaka placed the blame, so to speak, squarely on Microsoft at this point. Microsoft apparently made a one-time exception for FFXI back in the day, before Xbox Live was as established as it is now. Under their present “rules”, something like that wouldn’t be allowed. Why not? It’s his understanding that this one-time exception was made because Xbox Live needed all the help it could get at that point. Now the console giant is unwilling to open up its system to work with Final Fantasy XIV.

Because of that, it seems all development on the 360 version of FFXIV has been cancelled. I can’t blame Square-Enix here. Why would they continue development of their MMO on a system that seems staunchly against allowing the game to work? This doesn’t mean development can’t be restarted in the future, if Microsoft decides it wants to cooperate, but for now, don’t hold your breath!

Chad joined the DualShockers staff in mid 2009 and since then has put much of his time into covering RPGs, with a focus on the Japanese side of the genre, from the obscure to the mainstream. He's a huge fan of iconic games like Secret of Mana, Final Fantasy VI and Persona 4 yet enjoys the smaller niche titles, as well. In his spare time he enjoys experiencing new beer, new foods and keeping up with just about every sci-fi show on television. He's married to an intelligent, beautiful Southern Belle who keeps his life interesting with witty banter and spicy Cajun cooking.